Models of Lincoln sites now downloadable

The opportunity to have a micro-version of a Lincoln site in your home, office or school will cost you only an afternoon, some printer ink and a few pieces of card stock paper.

Pete Sherman

The opportunity to have a micro-version of a Lincoln site in your home, office or school will cost you only an afternoon, some printer ink and a few pieces of card stock paper.

The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency is launching a program that will allow anyone to re-create three-dimensional Lincoln sites by printing cutouts and instructions from a Web site. Currently, six models are available. More will be added throughout the year.

The scale of the models is comparable to the common scale for model railroads, for which roughly a tenth of an inch equals one foot.

“The Old State Capitol model, you can get your arms around it, but just barely. Others are smaller than a shoebox,” said Carol Dyson, senior preservation architect at IHPA.

The idea grew out of a similar program IHPA has been offering for the past five years, featuring build-your-own plans for historic downtown buildings in cities that are part of the agency’s Illinois Main Street program.

Dyson said model railroad enthusiasts from as far away as New Zealand have contacted IHPA about the Main Street models.

Officials of Knox College in Galesburg, impressed by the Main Street plans, called to ask if a model could be made of its Old Main building, the site of one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Dyson said. The request morphed into the Build Your Own Lincoln Sites idea.

Dyson said the projects are ideal for children.

“It’s a fun way to get young people interested in historic preservation,” she said. Teachers also have taken advantage of the project, having their students build model Lincoln sites before visiting the real ones.

Some plans are simple. The Thomas Lincoln family cabin in Lerna and the Lincoln-Berry Store in New Salem require only a couple of pages for all the pieces and instructions. The plans for the Old State Capitol are much more elaborate and require 41 pages.

The typical project should take “about an afternoon” to complete, Dyson said. Something like the Old State Capitol model would be an ideal project for an entire classroom, or a very enthusiastic hobbyist.

The project is funded by the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Old State Capitol Foundation.

“It’s such a neat project,” said Kay Smith, director of the commission. “I’ve seen a few of them. They’re fun. They’re educational.”

Pete Sherman can be reached at (217) 788-1539 or pete.sherman@sj-r.com.

Lifestyle

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The Helena-West Helena World - Helena, AR ~ 417 York, Helena, AR 72342 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service